Fighting Against Tuition Hikes

When Montreal’s McGill University announced plans to raise tuition for its M.B.A. program, Quebec Province fought back. The cost of McGill’s M.B.A. is now about $1,700 a year. The school wants to increase tuition to the rather American price of $30,000 a year.

But the hike put it on a collision course with Education Minister Michelle Courchesne, who sent McGill notice that the government would impose sanctions: It would claw back close to $30,000 in financing for each MBA student from Quebec, in a bid to eliminate any advantage from the tuition hike.

“Our responsibility is to ensure that the quality of teaching is comparable across Quebec,” [Courchesne] said. “Why should Quebeckers accept that we give [McGill] the same amount of money [as other universities] while they are asking $30,000 from individuals? I don’t think it is a good use of public funds.”

Perhaps I’m missing something here, but that seems like a pretty good point to me. I’m pretty sure this sort of thing wouldn’t ever happen in the United States. McGill hasn’t responded to Courchesne challenge yet.

According to Peritz’s article, Quebec still has the lowest tuition rates in Canada.[Image via]